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Any good study resources for Math HL


Guest iBinbar

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Guest iBinbar

Hi, Math at my school is co enrolled SL/HL and because the IB program is new at my school I am actually the only sutent in my cohort taking Math HL. I was wondering if there were any resources that you found helpful to fully understand the materials in the class. 

Thanks so much

Ben

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wow! you are very brave then, because in my experience HL/SL mixed classes are not too good... usually the HL people are left on their own for a lot of the time.

First and foremost: your book. Use your book. Read all the explanations and all the examples. Do all of the problems. This might seem obvious but it's really the base of your learning (does your school give you your book? if they don't, make sure you buy a good one- my school uses the Haese & Harris one which for me worked really well, although their option book was not so good).

I've also used this youtube person who makes tons of math videos-- specially useful for all the calculus! He is really amazing and explains really well. Plus, you can get extra practice by trying out the problems he shows BEFORE watching the video of how he solves them. 

Find out if your school has bought the IB past papers or has access to a question bank; I would say don't worry too much about past papers during the first semester (and not even a lot during Year1 in general) but do make sure you have tons of those to do and practice during Year2. If your school has not bought them, you will have to try to find some online- this could be hard as technically the IB does not allow people to post past papers online (copyright reasons). Note that from before 2008 they are not too useful as the syllabus changed quite a lot since then. 

My school also enrolled in Smartbacc; I personally haven't used it much, but there's exercises and problems and explanations, so you might want to look into it. 

and of course there's always IB survival if you need help with a specific question 

Hope this helped :) good luck! 

 

Edited by eross
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SL and HL Math co-enrollment does not make sense because HL is not just one or two topics but 90% of SL + a lot of additional content. A good start is to go through the SL and HL syllabus and note any differences. Some materials you should try learning on your own, such as proof by induction and solutions of inequalities. Your teachers should offer you more office hours because HL does require about 90 more hours of learning than SL (as per syllabus requirements). 

It is very important to find past papers, such as in the last 6 years, and the find associating markschemes (answer keys) so you can be very familiar with the questions. Online, you can try search for the year, paper #, subject, and timezone. Timezone 1 is Western Hemisphere in May examination, TZ2 is Eastern Hemisphere in May examination, TZ0 is November examinations. All timezone papers are distinct but are based on identical syllabus. The current one is in effect from May 2014 examinations. Papers should only be used after you are somewhat confident with the content. 

I digress. Course companions and non-official textbooks may help. Publishers of such include Cambridge, Pearson, and Haese. You should get one considering your school is inexperienced. You can also find many math videos on YouTube. You should attempt problems from local textbooks in which there are a lot of exercises. Go the the library to see if you can find one. These are good at reinforcing key concepts using more simpler examples than IB.

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Guest iBinbar
2 hours ago, kw0573 said:

SL and HL Math co-enrollment does not make sense because HL is not just one or two topics but 90% of SL + a lot of additional content. A good start is to go through the SL and HL syllabus and note any differences. Some materials you should try learning on your own, such as proof by induction and solutions of inequalities. Your teachers should offer you more office hours because HL does require about 90 more hours of learning than SL (as per syllabus requirements). 

It is very important to find past papers, such as in the last 6 years, and the find associating markschemes (answer keys) so you can be very familiar with the questions. Online, you can try search for the year, paper #, subject, and timezone. Timezone 1 is Western Hemisphere in May examination, TZ2 is Eastern Hemisphere in May examination, TZ0 is November examinations. All timezone papers are distinct but are based on identical syllabus. The current one is in effect from May 2014 examinations. Papers should only be used after you are somewhat confident with the content. 

I digress. Course companions and non-official textbooks may help. Publishers of such include Cambridge, Pearson, and Haese. You should get one considering your school is inexperienced. You can also find many math videos on YouTube. You should attempt problems from local textbooks in which there are a lot of exercises. Go the the library to see if you can find one. These are good at reinforcing key concepts using more simpler examples than IB.

Thanks this is a lot of useful info, I will make sure to pickup a course companion because that seems pretty useful. The most challenging thing for me right no is that my teacher really doesn't seem to have any kind of a plan. I go into the lunch time extra meetings and he just picks up a text book looks through it for a little while and then tells me to solve some problems while he grades papers. When I have trouble with something his response usually is just to tell me to work on it over the week and see if I get the answer. Course guides and videos in addition to the textbook (we use the Oxford ones) both seem like good ideas.

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19 minutes ago, iBinbar said:

Thanks this is a lot of useful info, I will make sure to pickup a course companion because that seems pretty useful. The most challenging thing for me right no is that my teacher really doesn't seem to have any kind of a plan. I go into the lunch time extra meetings and he just picks up a text book looks through it for a little while and then tells me to solve some problems while he grades papers. When I have trouble with something his response usually is just to tell me to work on it over the week and see if I get the answer. Course guides and videos in addition to the textbook (we use the Oxford ones) both seem like good ideas.

You should keep a printed copy of the syllabus with you so you can always refer to the expectations when you work through problems. When you ask questions, make sure you go right to the point (eg. I know I need to get this in a form that shows stretches and compressions, but once I do that how can I graph this function?). Make a list of questions each day and just spend 5-10 minutes voicing your concerns in the beginning (before he picks up the book), instead of asking him every few minutes while you work. Even if you are not satisfied with his responses, it's nice for him to know about your progress. 

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Guest iBinbar
1 minute ago, kw0573 said:

You should keep a printed copy of the syllabus with you so you can always refer to the expectations when you work through problems. When you ask questions, make sure you go right to the point (eg. I know I need to get this in a form that shows stretches and compressions, but once I do that how can I graph this function?). Make a list of questions each day and just spend 5-10 minutes voicing your concerns in the beginning (before he picks up the book), instead of asking him every few minutes while you work. Even if you are not satisfied with his responses, it's nice for him to know about your progress. 

Thanks those are some great suggestions, one of the biggest problems is that he never gave me a HL or SL syllabus at the beginning of the year because he got hired in October after our original teacher lost three family members decided he couldn't handle working right then and quit. So there really is no plan I never know what we are going to do he just sets down a book and gives me problems.

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5 minutes ago, iBinbar said:

Thanks those are some great suggestions, one of the biggest problems is that he never gave me a HL or SL syllabus at the beginning of the year because he got hired in October after our original teacher lost three family members decided he couldn't handle working right then and quit. So there really is no plan I never know what we are going to do he just sets down a book and gives me problems.

Many of these documents are available online. We have most of the syllabus and data booklet under the our Files section.
HL Math guide/syllabus (2014 and later)

SL Math guide/syllabus (2014 and later)

HL Math Data Booklet (2014 and later) available on all exams

You should read guides for all subjects carefully. These are official outlines of all test materials and examination styles.

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Guest iBinbar
33 minutes ago, kw0573 said:

Many of these documents are available online. We have most of the syllabus and data booklet under the our Files section.
HL Math guide/syllabus (2014 and later)

SL Math guide/syllabus (2014 and later)

HL Math Data Booklet (2014 and later) available on all exams

You should read guides for all subjects carefully. These are official outlines of all test materials and examination styles.

Thanks so much, now the question is to what extent has this teacher actually read this....

Edited by iBinbar
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